In many different types of systems, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) can be used to convert an incoming analog value to a digital value. Such ADCs are useful in many contexts. Specifically, an ADC can be used to read a real world value, namely an analog signal such as a voltage of a given circuit, a temperature, a level of a monitored piece of process equipment or so forth, and convert it to a digital value for use in a control system, as an example.
A number of different types of ADCs exist, including flash ADCs and sigma-delta ADCs. A still further type of ADC is a successive approximation register (SAR) ADC, which compares the input analog signal to a quantization level, and adjust the quantization level in each step to search for a closer level to the input. The SAR ADC usually implements a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in its feedback loop to generate the quantization level for the comparator, like having a switched capacitor digital-to-analog converter (CDAC). While such ADCs are suitable for many applications, there can be undesirable tradeoffs between accuracy (e.g., number of bits of resolution), speed and power consumption.